Bird Sanctuary

There has been much activity with regard to the birds on campus. We are working towards gathering information about these birds and we are focusing on rehabilitating the William Nicol Bird Sanctuary.

A focus area, at the moment, is to understand which bird species are on the campus and what they are doing. As part of this process, we have begun working with external organisations that will focus on gathering this information.

Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo and BirdLife South Africa will be ringing also known as "tagging" birds in the William Nicol Bird Sanctuary. The information they collect will go to SAFRing – an arm of UCT’s Animal Demography Unit – an organisation that administers bird ringing. This will allow us to keep a close eye on the movement of birds on the campus.

In the last two years there have been around 30 different species of birds returning to the sanctuary and to the campus. As a result, the Animal Demography Unit will also be coming to the sanctuary themselves to net, ring and record the birds in the sanctuary. Their key focus is to monitor migratory and breeding statistics. So far, they have learned that there have been recent sightings of species that seemed to have dwindling numbers in the past few years. This is a positive suggestion that the species are returning to the area. However, this can only be determined through study.

The rehabilitation of the bird sanctuary, including the area between the sanctuary and the Peter Place entrance, has assisted us in monitoring the return of birds to the area. What is interesting is that the birds are also breeding in the wetland.

Once the second phase grassland has been re-established and further trees have been planted, we hope this sanctuary will be a popular bird observation area.

If you are visiting the sanctuary or the campus and find a dead bird, particularly if it is ringed, please report it to SAFRing.